Posts by author
Kelly Lynn Thomas
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Air Travel Is So Passé
At the New Yorker, Nathan Heller asks whether or not air travel has become obsolete in a world connected by the Internet and social media (and decides that no, it really hasn’t): When physical travel cedes to digital exploration, a certain…
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Writers and Moral Obligation
At the New York Times Book Ends column this week, Zoë Heller and Francine Prose discuss whether or not William Faulkner’s famous quote, “The writer’s only responsibility is to his art,” holds up. In other words, Heller asks, does producing great…
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Oxford Lit Fest Will Consider Paying Authors
Last week, Philip Pullman pulled out of the Oxford Literary Festival because the event does not pay authors. Now, Oxford, at least, is saying that it will consider paying all speakers for its 2017 event. This will be a challenge,…
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The Making of the OED
The Oxford English Dictionary, the first comprehensive catalog of the English language, took seventy years to compile. Volunteers aided the project, and one of the biggest contributors happened to be a murderer who lived in an insane asylum: Through the…
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The Writing Life in Nigeria
A new essay by Nigerian author A. Igoni Barrett (Love Is Power, or Something Like That and Blackass) highlights the ways poverty and struggle work against those in Nigeria who would be writers: I found nothing there for me [at…
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New Ambassador for Young People’s Lit
The Library of Congress is, for the first time, naming a graphic novelist as the Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The honor goes to Gene Luen Yang, author of the graphic novels American Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints, among…
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Mistaken Identity
A New Age book and gift shop in Denver, Colorado called Isis Books and Gifts changed its branding after vandals smashed its sign, thinking the store was related to the Islamic State. The sign now reads “Goddess of 10,000 Names,”…
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Poetry As Propaganda
Oxford academic Elisabeth Kendall has found that poetry may be a major recruitment tool for militant jihadis in the Middle East. Although poetry is often sidelined in Western cultures, it is still important in Arab-speaking nations, where a reality TV show…
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Subversive Coloring in the ‘60s
Adult coloring books are enjoying a huge surge right now, but this isn’t the first time coloring books for adults have been popular. In the 1960s, coloring books criticizing everything from communism to corporate life proliferated: The point of the sixties coloring…
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Sylvia Plath’s Earliest Works
Gothamist was recently given permission to share some of Sylvia Plath’s earliest manuscripts in a video on their website. The manuscripts, which include drawings, some of her favorite poems, and her own original poetry, are held in a private collection…
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Black Hermione Fine with Rowling
A black actress—Noma Dumezweni—has been cast to play the adult Hermione in the upcoming stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and author J.K. Rowling applauded the choice. Some fans were upset or confused about the choice to go…
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Ditching Amazon: Good for Business
After it dropped Amazon as one of its booksellers, sales for Educational Development Corp. (which has imprints such as Usbourne) titles rose from less than $1,500 a day to around $30,000 per day: The Amazon decision, White added, was also…